It’s easy to get overwhelmed or even know where to start when you first sign up with Twitter.  To help you along, I’d like to share some of the things I’ve learned using Twitter. I hope you find them useful.

1) Who you follow is much more important than who follows you. If you followed a bunch of people who talk about nothing that interests you, would you find that valuable? Of course not. Only follow people and companies you find interesting and/or helpful.

2) This is closely related to #1 – Do not automatically follow whomever follows you.  It might seem like the courteous thing to do, but what it really does is clutter up your Twitter feed with a lot of useless information.  Also, you will quickly find that many of the people who follow you are only spammers trying to game the system.  When someone new follows you, take a look at what they put out on Twitter.  If seem interesting, follow them. If not, don’t.

3) Twitter is best used for two-way communication, not as a one-way marketing channel.  Take the time to respond when someone sends you an @ mention.

4) Don’t start following a ton of people until you have put out some good content on Twitter yourself. I’m constantly getting followed by new users who are following 1300 people but have only tweeted eight times. It should go without saying that I don’t follow them back because I don’t find them interesting or helpful.

5) Use http://search.twitter.com/ to find interesting people to follow.  If you’re into knitting, search for the word ‘knitting.’  Peruse the results, follow links that people share, send people @ replies if you find what they’ve shared interesting, and follow them.  You can do this for any subject you’re interested in.

6) Follow people off Twitter, too.  Find someone really cool on Twitter who also has a blog?  Leave comments over there. Twitter is great, partially because it’s a great gateway to other sites.

7) Don’t expect overnight success.  Twitter, as with everything else worthwhile, takes time.

8) Don’t be afraid to talk to big names – you’ll be surprised how often you get a response from someone semi-famous – but don’t make it the only reason you’re on Twitter, either.  I’ve had some cool interaction with some pretty big names that I would not have had of not for Twitter.

9) Use your real name.  If you decide to use a moniker, make your real name easy to find.  Olivier Blanchard uses his company name on Twitter, @thebrandbuilder, but you only need to look at his Twitter page to find his real name.  My web host, Surpass Hosting, is on Twitter as @surpass.  If you look at their Twitter page you’ll see the names of the people who use the account, and they always sign their tweets with their initials so you always know who you’re talking to.

10) Promote other people and their content.  If someone you follow tweets something interesting, retweet it so your own followers can see it.  There’s also a tradition on Twitter called Follow Friday when you can suggest to your followers other people they might find interesting.  Some people just provide a big list, but it’s more helpful to explain why you’re suggesting someone.

11) Ease into it. Get used to using it at your own pace.  I currently follow about 1200 people.  At one point last year when I was following 250 people, I couldn’t imagine following very many more.  I obviously got past that, and that’s because I didn’t push myself unnecessarily and got used it.

This really just scratches the surface. I haven’t talked about the various online services and pieces of software built around making Twitter easier to use or more effective.  None of that will do you much good, though, until you have the basics down.  I’ll cover my favorite apps and services in a future post.

Professionalism is a mask we wear on top of our everyday personality, and is really a layer of formality through which our expertise is brought to the fore.  The formality we express depends on the specific situation we’re in in any given moment.

That does not mean that professional interactions are impersonal. To the contrary, everything is personal.  Whether it’s an encounter between a boss and employee or a customer service rep with a customer, every interaction begins and ends with the people underneath the mask of professionalism.

It is obviously possible to drop this mask.  Indeed, we usually dispense with it entirely during, for example, a gathering of friends.  There are also times when the personal peeks through the mask while we’re wearing it.  I would even say this is required, as it helps build a strong rapport between employees, employees and customers, etc.  While we may appreciate and admire the professional, it’s the person underneath we connect with.

The pleasant times when the mask can slip are pretty easy to handle.  A coworker announces they’ve gotten engaged, or a customer calls to praise an employee – this is exactly when you want to let your mask slip a little.

It’s during the unpleasant times when you absolutely must keep the mask in place.  A customer calls to complain and starts yelling at an employee.  A boss jumps right to the threat of termination at the first sign of unwanted behavior from an employee.  Taking off your mask like this is not merely unprofessional, it demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the person you’re dealing with.  This is not something you want to do if you expect to have a continued relationship with the other person: The customer will have a bad reputation among the employees at that company, and the boss will become known as a tyrant.

Would you respect or want to do business with someone who demonstrated such behavior?

Your mask sets the tone of your reputation. Wear it well.